Just like managers typically conduct work appraisals for their employees, Ava Soh does "performance reviews" of her own parents. She has been appraising them since she was 12.

"Usually it happens when we want to talk about something negative. I mean, you don't really call in someone just to tell them 'Hey, you did really well'," said Ava.

This practice, which may seem odd to most Asian families, is nothing out of the ordinary for the Soh household, where parents and children would sit for regular "meetings".

The Sohs have been featured in the media for their various endeavours. Elder son Dylan gave a TEDx talk at age 13, and he and his sister Ava had launched Kickstarter projects in their teens.

Most recently, Ava, 16, grabbed headlines again when a wearable non-fungible token (NFT) design that she had illustrated to raise aid funds for Ukraine was worn by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his special virtual address at the Shangri-La Dialogue security summit.

Ahead of Fathers’ Day on Sunday (June 19), TODAY spoke to father and daughter pair Calvin and Ava Soh to find out what is it about the Sohs' parenting style that have produced such enterprising children.

The duo chatted via Zoom from Lisbon, Portugal, where the family — with the exception of Dylan, 20, who is serving his National Service — was on a holiday trip. Mr Soh’s wife, Arlette Tan-Soh, declined to be interviewed.

NOT SO DIFFERENT FROM OTHER PARENTS

Like other parents, Mr Soh said he and his wife are just trying their best to prepare their children for a good future.

“I used to parent my kids the way my father parented me, which was the strict Asian father style,” said the 54-year-old business and marketing consultant.

However, his perspective on parenting changed as he progressed in his professional life.

He worked in cities such as Shanghai, Tokyo and New York, where he was judged solely on “whether you’re good at what you’re doing” and not by his lack of a degree. This, he said, had shed his belief in a commonly held notion in Singapore that professional success hinges on paper qualifications.

At the same time, observing how seismic economic changes had affected his former clients made him realise how rapidly industries and jobs come and go, in this period that he describes as the Exponential Age.

Hence 10 years ago, he decided to change his parenting approach — one that was more consultative while giving his children the licence to experiment. He encouraged them to embark on activities that he felt would equip them with attributes that cannot be easily displaced by automation, such as problem solving, creativity, curiosity and resilience.

“Our point of view is this: If they can be looking at problems and finding problems to solve, they will have a job for life. There’s no ‘career for life’ anymore,” he said.

CHILDREN KEPT BUSY OUTSIDE SCHOOL

When it comes to education, the Sohs tell their two children to be “smart enough to pass; you don’t have to be first in class or first in school”.

But outside of school, the children kept themselves busy.

At age 13, Dylan delivered a TEDx talk here to over 2,000 people, after a book he had illustrated and co-authored with his father and sold at weekend markets caught the attention of the talk organisers.

He has worked on two Kickstarter projects so far relating to urban farming.

Ava, currently a Secondary 4 student at St Joseph’s Institution International, had other projects prior to the wearable NFT one that she had launched this year in support of Ukraine.

In 2020 she created her own brand, Daughters of the Revolution, under which she launched a jewellery collection via Kickstarter. Part of the sales went to local women-focused charity, Daughters of Tomorrow.

Mr Soh said that seeing a Kickstarter project through from scratch to production and marketing put his children “at the forefront” of solving real-life problems.

NOT BROUGHT UP TO 'JUST BE QUIET' IN SCHOOL

Ava is well aware that not many among her peers share the same passion as her.

“I’ve been asked a lot, ‘Oh my God, you are such an activist, why do you care so much?’ Or you might get teased for that,” she said, adding that some view activism as a “dirty” word.

She said some saw pursuits beyond the classroom as pointless unless those activities count towards community service points in the academic transcript.

“A lot of kids have been brought up to believe that you should just be quiet and be a guai kid in school and just do your work, and don't put your attention on anything else,” said Ava, using the Mandarin word for well behaved.

‘CAN ONLY BE TAUGHT BY DOING’

Mr Soh said that their different approach in bringing up their children has drawn criticism from other parents, whom he believes were “projecting their own fears”.

“Some were a bit more antagonistic, they’d say things like: ‘What makes you so clever, you know all these (disruptions) will happen, you smarter than the rest of the system?’” he recounted.

Acknowledging that no parent can be spot on in their projection of the future or find the perfect way to prepare for it, Mr Soh, however, was confident in his methods.

“It is a learning journey for all of us, but we have become comfortable with uncertainties. And I think that is an asset,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ava said that she still has no clear plans for her future and is under no pressure from her parents.

“I don’t think the expectations are high; my father didn’t even go to college,” she quipped, to her father’s laughter.

Mr Soh believes that while some parents expect their children to have early career ambitions so that they can take the right academic paths towards those goals, it would only add tremendous pressure on the child.

“Our job as parents is to put them on a journey to find themselves while equipping them with the relevant skill sets for the future,” he said.

“But these skill sets can only be taught by doing. It’s not a semester programme with a test at the end.”

Source:
courtesy of TODAY

by TAUFIQ ZALIZAN

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